CERTWATCH(1)                                         Cryptography Utilities                                         CERTWATCH(1)



NAME
       certwatch - generate SSL certificate expiry warnings

SYNOPSIS
       certwatch [OPTION...] filename

DESCRIPTION
       The certwatch program is used to issue warning mail when an SSL certificate is about to expire.

       The program has two modes of operation: normal mode and quiet mode. In normal mode, the certificate given by the filename
       argument is examined, and a warning email is issued to standard output if the certificate is outside its validity period,
       or approaching expiry. If the certificate cannot be found, or any errors occur whilst parsing the certificate, the
       certificate is ignored and no output is produced. In quiet mode, no output is given, but the exit status can still be
       used.

       The certificate can be specified by its nickname or by a path to the containing file.

OPTIONS
       --quiet, -q
           Enable quiet mode; no output is produced whether the certificate is expired or not

       --period days, -p days
           Specify the number of days within which an expiry warning will be produced; default is 30. Expiry warnings are always
           produced if, on the day of invocation, the certificate is not yet valid, has already expired, or is due to expire
           either that day or the following day.

       --address address, -a address
           Specify the address used in the To field of the warning e-mail issued if quiet mode is not enabled. The default is
           root.

       --directory cert-directory, -d cert-directory
           Specify the database directory containing the certificate and key database files. The default is yet to be
           determined.

DIAGNOSTICS
       The exit code indicates the state of the certificate:

       0
           The certificate is outside its validity period, or approaching expiry

       1
           The certificate is inside its validity period, or could not be parsed

NOTES
       The certwatch program is run daily by crond from the file /etc/cron.daily/certwatch to generate warning mail concerning
       the imminent expiry of SSL certificates configured for use in the Apache HTTP server. These warnings can be disabled by
       adding the line: NOCERTWATCH=yes to the file /etc/sysconfig/httpd. Additional options to pass to certwatch can be
       specified in that file in the CERTWATCH_OPTS environment variable.

FILES
       /etc/cron.daily/certwatch, /etc/sysconfig/httpd

SEE ALSO
       genkey(1)



crypto-utils 2.4.1                                         1 June 2010                                              CERTWATCH(1)